


The Taxi Ride

by TwistedHallows



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Emotional Infidelity, M/M, Masturbation, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:22:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26924308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistedHallows/pseuds/TwistedHallows
Summary: Harry was never the same after the war. He was an empty shell of the person he once was, and seemed to do everything for others, and yet, nothing for himself.He married Ginny, like he was supposed to.It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known. There was always something with Malfoy, wasn’t there?
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 91





	The Taxi Ride

**Author's Note:**

> The song that inspired this fic is called The Taxi Ride by Jane Siberry. Highly recommend it! It's a heartbreaking song, but I felt it really spoke to the mood I wanted to portray.
> 
> As usual, the characters do not belong to me and I am making no profit off of this! I'm just having fun <3
> 
> I am my own beta, so please forgive any errors that you find, but please feel free to point them out so I can fix them!

Ginny Potter stood at the large window by the bedside, idly twisting her wedding ring as silent tears streamed down her face. She knew it was coming. It wasn’t as though it was a surprise. She just didn’t expect it to hurt this much.

Harry was never the same after the war. He was an empty shell of the person he once was, and seemed to do everything for others, and yet, nothing for himself. His eyes were dull. His smiles were empty. He found no joy or pleasure in anything. Everything he did was for a cause. He joined the Aurors because it was expected of him. He took down dark wizards because he was Harry Potter, and that’s what Harry Potter did.

He asked Ginny to marry him not long after the war ended, after barely a year’s time together. Ginny was ecstatic. It was all she had ever wanted, since that first fateful kiss they shared after they won the Quidditch cup. She knew that Harry was the one for her. Even though he had broken it off to go search for Horcruxes, Ginny never gave up hope… and Harry had come back to her. 

They married in the garden at the Burrow, and it was a momentous affair. All of their friends came from all over the world, and the Prophet had a field day, with headlines such as **POTTER FINALLY WED: OFF THE MARKET FOR GOOD** and **THE FAMILY OUR SAVIOR HAS ALWAYS DESERVED**.

When the announcement came for the first kiss as husband and wife, Ginny had looked into Harry’s eyes, expecting to see her own joy and excitement reflected back. And she did… but there was something else. A set to Harry’s jaw, a wariness that Ginny couldn’t explain at the time and didn’t feel the need to. He gave her a blazing kiss and swooped her into his arms, smiling down at her flushed face. 

They were happy.

They  _ seemed  _ happy.

The nightmares came not long after they moved in together. Harry had warned her, and Ginny had expected them, but not to the caliber they grew into. In the early stages, Harry would awaken, cold and clammy, hands pressed against his heart, his scar, and then a hand would reach to Ginny to ensure that she was there beside him. He managed to settle himself after most of these dreams, a quick kiss to Ginny’s worried forehead before dropping back into a restless slumber. These dreams were normal; anyone who had been through the war like Harry would have them. It was understandable. 

It was the other dreams Harry had that Ginny knew were their downfall.

They started off as nightmares, as most of them did. Harry would begin muttering and thrashing around, kicking the covers off, scrunching his face as though in pain. The mutters didn’t have any meaning, they were too quiet to hear, but the name he would say came through crystal clear.

“…Malfoy…”

She asked him about these nightmares, a few times. Harry would look down at his hands and pick at his nails, a nervous habit he picked up during the war. “Fiendfyre,” he would say quietly, “I’m reliving that day over and over. I should have been able to save them all...” Ginny would pull him close and run her fingers through his hair, and he would lean into her, breathing in her soft, womanly scent, and that seemed to comfort him for a time. He would look up at her and smile, give her a soft kiss in thanks, and would remove himself to make dinner, or putter around the garden. Anything to keep from being idle.

It was when “Malfoy” became “Draco” that everything started falling apart. 

The nightmares morphed into dreams - not that the nightmares disappeared completely, but the dreams became more pronounced as time went on. It was no longer Harry waking up in a cold sweat and clutching his rapidly breathing chest. It was Harry waking up with a gasp and quietly leaving the bed for a time before coming back and falling bonelessly next to Ginny, falling asleep without seeking her comfort.

It wasn’t as if she hadn’t known. There was always something with Malfoy, wasn’t there? That’s what Ron and Hermione told her when she came to them with tears held back after another of Harry’s dreams. She didn’t give many details, just enough for Ron and Hermione to share a knowing look. He was always obsessed with Malfoy, they had told her, but it wasn’t anything more than that. It never went further.

They didn’t know what she heard at night, though.

They didn’t know about the breathless panting, the soft moans, the slick sound of skin against skin, becoming more and more frantic before it came to a stuttering crescendo, Draco’s name falling from Harry’s lips in a muffled plea...

Harry stirred in the bed, breaking Ginny from her thoughts. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and glanced at the permanent Tempus charm affixed to the bedside table - it was a little after midnight.

She couldn’t do this anymore.

“Harry?” She sat softly beside the sleeping figure, placing a tentative hand upon his back. “Harry, wake up please. I … we need to talk.” Harry jolted himself awake, his Auror training allowing him to go from sleep to full wakefulness in a split second. He waved a hand and the lights in the room turned on as he hurriedly shoved his glasses onto his face.

“Gin! What’s going on? Is something happening? What’s… wrong?” He trailed off, noting the wetness on her face. He raised a hand and cupped her cheek, bringing her face to his for a kiss. She turned at the last second and his lips brushed her cheek. Brow furrowed, he pulled his hand away slowly and looked confused. “What’s wrong?”

Inhaling, Ginny steadied herself for what would end up being one of the worst nights of her life. “It’s over,” she said quietly, her brown eyes meeting his concerned green. “We can’t keep this up.” 

If she expected surprise, she didn’t receive it. Harry’s face contorted and he looked away, running a hand through his hair. “How long?” He asked, staring resolutely at their bedroom door, wanting nothing more than to disappear.

“Months.” Ginny’s voice was barely above a whisper, but it sounded like a shout in the silent room. “You have to… you had to know I’d find out, Harry.” He took a deep breath and met her eyes, his own shining with unrepressed emotion. It was shocking to see, as he was usually well guarded.

“Was it the dreams?” His voice cracked, and he looked away again, absently beginning to pick at the skin of his left thumb. “Was it…”

“All of it.” She interrupted him. “The dreams, sneaking away after… Harry, you barely look at me. We barely talk. We don’t… we’re not intimate.” She shook her head and cleared her throat. “Does he know?”

“Possibly.” He breathed out, pain written on his face. “I’ve been sending letters.” He looked pleadingly into Ginny’s face. “I haven’t cheated on you Gin, not once. I have copies of everything I’ve sent him, and everything he’s sent back. You can read them…” but Ginny was shaking her head, a sad, knowing look across her face. 

“We married too young, Harry.” It was said with finality. “I threw myself at you, and in turn, you accepted it. I didn’t want to believe it, I really didn’t. But these last few months have solidified it in my mind. We’re better off as friends.” She hiccupped, attempting to hold back a sob, and Harry reached out and held her close, their breaths mingling, tears falling in tandem.

“I can stop Gin,” Harry murmured, “I don’t have to talk to him, I don’t have to do any of it.” He held her tighter to his chest. “I can do better, be a better husband.” Ginny laughed, her eyes sharp with tears.

“You can’t, Harry. You won’t. And you don’t need to.” The next words shattered her to the core, but she knew they had to be said. “I knew about the letters, Harry. I knew, and I knew how you felt, I could see it in your face, feel it in everything you did. I hoped…. selfishly, but I hoped it was fleeting. I hoped that once you got it out of your system, that you’d be okay. You’d come back to me.” 

“I can, Gin. I will…”

“You need someone to save.” The five words struck a chord deep in Harry’s chest, and finally, finally, he let himself feel. A loud cry tore from his chest and suddenly he was sobbing, crying harder than he ever had, knowing that Ginny’s words rang true. 

Ginny didn’t need saving. She was a perfectly capable adult woman who knew what she wanted, what she liked, and how to get it.

Draco was alone. His parents were in Azkaban. He was exiled to live as a muggle for the next eight years, and he was struggling. He told Harry in his letters. He poured his heart and soul out to his old school nemesis, the only person who ever tried to contact him. His old friends were either abroad in hiding or in Azkaban. No one wanted to associate with the Malfoy name. He was under house arrest except for one day a week when he was allowed to shop for essentials with his parole officer. Visitors were allowed and encouraged, but there was no one for him. Harry had offered to visit, but Draco had declined, telling him that he already had too much on his plate, with Ginny, the Weasleys’, Auror training, and being Teddy’s godfather.

In return for the words Draco gave him, Harry reciprocated with stories of Auror training, missions he was allowed to speak about, and daily activities. He spoke of the Weasleys’ shop and the products that they used on the field, dinners at the Burrow, and outings he had with Ginny. He talked about the hard cases that left him feeling empty, and the good cases that made everything worthwhile. Along with tales from his own life, Harry regaled Draco with stories of Teddy’s first steps, his first words, things that Draco wouldn’t learn about his cousin any other way.

“You tell him things you don’t tell me.” 

Intimacy issues. Ginny wanted children soon, and Harry felt like he wasn’t ready. He felt pressured into being The Savior no matter what he did to separate himself from the title. 

When he was talking to Draco, he was just Harry. He didn’t have to be anyone else.

“I’ve called you a taxi.” This made Harry stiffen. He looked up at Ginny, his eyes red and wet with the emotions he almost never allowed himself to show. “It’ll be here in the morning. You can give the driver his address.” Ginny wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to stop her own shaking. “You have time to gather some things. I won’t stop you. I don’t want to stop you.” 

“Gin…” 

“I’ve made my decision, Harry.” She stood with finality, and walked to the door of their bedroom. “You need to make yours.” Opening the door, she took one last look back at him and smiled softly. “It’s been a long time coming. We both know that.” With a click, the door closed behind her and Harry was left in the partial darkness to gather his racing thoughts.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The letters may have been innocent, but the dreams were not.

Harry knew there was something between Draco and himself, but never wanted to put it into words. They weren’t close at school, and yet somehow, they ended up gravitating towards each other. 

The obsession that had begun in sixth year never faded. Knowing that Malfoy was up to something - and he was still Malfoy at that point - kept a fire burning in Harry longer than he would care to admit. Seeing Malfoy on the Astronomy tower, willing to lower his wand and take Dumbledore’s offered help… that only made the fire grow with more intensity. He didn’t have a name for it; he acknowledged the feeling and let it keep burning.

All those months searching for Horcruxes, the nights starting at the dots on the Marauder's Map - he felt the need to watch Ginny; a fierce internal need to protect her… but all too often, his eyes would stray to Malfoy’s dot, pacing around the dungeons or the Slytherin common rooms, hiding in secluded alcoves. 

What was he up to?

Was he alright?

When he didn’t identify Harry at the Manor… that was the shift in the fire that burned. He still couldn’t put a name to it, oh no. But by that point, after taking and wielding Malfoy’s wand, feeling the warmth from the Hawthorn rush through him, he felt as though he and Malfoy were one in the same. 

After Voldemort’s defeat, Harry didn’t want to return the wand. He had his own, and the Elder wand, but the Hawthorn wand had become another extension of himself. It wasn’t until the trials that Harry was willing to relinquish it, and only after Draco - because he had become Draco by then - had been sentenced. 

Harry spoke for Draco and his mother, but not Lucius. He spoke about how Draco didn’t identify him at great personal risk, willingly let him use the Hawthorn wand (what was a little white lie in the face of adversity?), and how Narcissa had lied directly to Voldemort about him being alive, allowing him the element of surprise he needed to finish the job. 

In the end, Narcissa was still given time in Azkaban, though admittedly less than Lucius’s life sentence, and Draco had gotten away with ten years of house arrest in a remote muggle village, unable to use magic during his probation period. 

Draco had asked to see Harry after the trials, and Harry willingly met with him in one of the interrogation rooms. They stationed a probation Auror right outside the door, and with a stern, “No funny business!” Harry was allowed to enter the room, the door snapping shut behind him. He sat across from Draco, and they faced each other in silence for what felt like eons, before Draco slid a piece of parchment across the table. Harry unfolded it to find an address, and he looked up at Draco, confused.

“Write to me.” The gaunt blonde boy requested. “I have no one else.” With that, he stood and strode out of the room, head held high in his pointed, aristocratic way.

Harry spent several minutes sitting in the room before leaving.

At first, Harry didn’t know what to write. He tried small talk, but with Draco under house arrest, there were only so many times you could ask how someone was doing before it got dull and boring. That’s when Harry decided to just… write.

He wrote about Auror training and his classes and teachers. He wrote about the drills they did, the obstacle courses and the assessment missions they had to endure. After his first official raid as a junior Auror, he wrote to Draco about how it went, what went wrong, and what should have happened. Draco would respond to everything he said, pointing out flaws with the training that he saw, giving advice on other things, and even from time to time offering suggestions on how to get along with the other Aurors in Training Harry didn’t seem to be connecting with. Harry took all of Draco’s advice and was well on his way to becoming a fully-fledged Auror in a few short months.

The dreams had started after a particular letter.

Having awoken from yet another Fiendfyre dream, and instead of being able to calm down and go back to sleep, Harry found himself at his writing desk, scribbling down everything that came to his mind to Draco. How he felt when he saw Draco stranded in the room. The fear that he wouldn’t make it out alive. The guilt of Crabbe dying. Harry poured all of his feelings into that letter, leaving nothing unsaid. As Muggle post was slower than owl post, he had to wait an entire week for a response, but when it came it was nothing like Harry imagined.

Harry had thought Draco would tell him to fuck off, to stop writing all together, something of that nature. To his surprise, it was an envelope thick with apologies for nearly every single event that had happened since their first year at Hogwarts. It took Harry hours to read - not only because he had work that day, but because everything in the letter was so heavy and full of emotion that he couldn’t handle it all at one time. When he finally got to the last page of the letter, the last few lines Draco had written was his undoing:

“I have never hated you, not once in our lives. I hope you know that now, and know that I am truly, deeply sorry for any undue distress that I have caused you or your friends and family in the past. I am so very thankful for what we have now, and would do nothing to jeopardize it. I look forward to meeting you again, Harry Potter.”

Something about Draco Malfoy pouring his heart out had reignited the ember that had always been within Harry.

Harry felt guilty when the dreams started. Full of long, slender limbs, hard muscles and none of the feminine softness Harry had come to associate with Ginny. He would pull himself awake and take care of himself as quietly as possible. It was by some miracle Ginny never woke up after one of the dreams…

But miracles don’t last forever.

Ginny’s words hit him like a blow to the head. Maybe she was right; maybe it had been a long time coming, but he had suppressed it so well he was blind to see it. It wasn’t something he wanted to admit to himself. It was something he had held so near to his heart, so guarded, sure that no one would find out his secret. He did what he was supposed to. He married Ginny. He had a family with the Weasleys’, and he didn’t want to do anything to destroy that.

Little did he know that all he was doing was making himself miserable.

Ginny had seen through his façade. Ginny had seen the depths of Harry’s discontent, what the war had left him with, how little of it was truly Harry Potter.

She loved him through it all.

And she loved him enough to let him go.

As promised, the little yellow cab arrived in front of their quaint cottage at 6am. Harry stood on the front porch, his bag packed and shrunk down to fit into the pocket of his blazer. Ginny stood next to him, silently looking out towards the sunrise barely peeking over the hills.

“I will always love you, Harry Potter,” she murmured, “But sometimes, when you love someone, you have to know when to let them go.” They shared one last embrace - and Harry felt his marriage disintegrating before him. This was a goodbye hug. This wasn’t a ‘come back to me’, this was a ‘goodbye forever.’

“Thank you, Gin.” The words stuck in his throat, his voice heavy with emotion. “I’ll see you around, yeah?” Ginny nodded, lips tight.

“Goodbye, Harry.” She closed the door of the house, leaving Harry to walk down the stairs and over to the taxi. With a heavy heart - but still feeling lighter than he had in years - he opened the door and sat down in the backseat.

“Where ya heading?” The driver barked, startling Harry. He gulped.

“Ridgeport Way,” he whispered, “24 Ridgeport Way.” With a nod, the driver pulled away from the home Harry had once shared with Ginny, solidifying what he was doing with an uncomfortable jerk in his stomach.

He thought back to the letters that he and Draco shared. They were innocent, truly, but the hope that blossomed in Harry every time he read Draco’s words held a silent promise that there could, perhaps, be something more. They spoke as if they were old friends, people who had known each other for years. There were no secrets between them - besides the paramount of Harry’s feelings. But even then, if Ginny had seen through him so clearly, why wouldn’t Draco…

All too soon, the taxi turned into the muggle village where Draco was exiled. The houses all looked vaguely similar, reminding him of Privet Drive. Slowing to a stop in front of a clean, cream colored house with a red door - the door was painted so that the probation Aurors knew immediately which house was Draco’s - the taxi driver tapped the meter. Harry leaned forward and dropped a wad of bills into his hand, muttering, “Keep the change,” as he got out of the car. The sun was shining brightly now, and the cool autumn breeze rustled through Harry’s messy hair. 

It was only a few short strides to the front door and a slight jog up the stairs. Harry stood on the small porch, his hands nervously balled at his sides.

This could be the start of the rest of his life, he told himself. This could be…

He raised his hand and knocked on the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I had fun writing this, and wanted to share it with everyone.
> 
> Another attempt at a one shot, but as I usually do, I left it open just in case I wanted to continue it at a later date.
> 
> You can follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/twistedhallows) or [Tumblr](https://twistedhallows.tumblr.com)! I'm basically everywhere as TwistedHallows so I'm sure you'll find me :)


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